When you want to know more about a legal story . . . but don't know where to look.

IANAL. I am a paralegal, so if you have a legal problem and want advice, this isn't the place. Hire an attorney instead. Research is, however, what paras do, so here I am sharing things I have found in my research.

SCO Rattles Its Nasty Saber Once Again Now McBride is saying SCO can audit AIX customers during discovery.

"'As we move into discovery, this will be very nice for us because now we get to go in and talk to all their people, their customers. We get to really shake things up and get in to find out what really is going on over there,' he said.

"McBride claimed that SCO has the right to audit IBM's customers. 'We have other rights under the contract we are looking at. For example, we can audit IBM customers. SCO has audit rights on its customers,' he said."

Clearly, SCO hasn't given one thought to after this trial is over. Maybe they are sure they will go under unless they win this battle. For sure, it's impossible to imagine anyone in their right mind entering into a business relationship with this company in the future.

Heise.de is reporting, in German, naturally, that SCO has filed a court document essentially agreeing not to repeat any more FUD in Germany against Linux. Here's an English computer-"translation" by Sherlock:

"SCO adds itself warning by LinuxTag

"The LinuxTag is present now an omission assertion of SCO Germany. Therein the enterprise commits itself to state in the future not further of Linux operating systems contained illegitimately acquired mental property of SCO Unix. The SCO Group will also not continue to state, final users could be made liable for the use of Linux or would have prosecution to fear as well as Linux are an not authorized derivative of Unix. During offence become a contractual penalty of 10.000 euro due.

"Against SCO several warnings are present. The association LinuxTag was selected of SCO as a recipient of the omission assertion, since this had expressed a warning as one first and a representative selection of the Linux users represents the members. The warning should force SCO to submit proofs for the alleged law breakings or take the statements back.

"Johannes Loxen of the German Linux federation regards the omission assertion as a partial success for the Linux municipality, since now the Vorverurteilung of the Linux users is from the desk. Now enterprises, which sent warnings away, check as the SerNet GmbH, whether the omission assertion is sufficient representatively of all warnings."

Stallman on SCO: It's No Disaster Richard Stallman has an article which you can read on ZDNet. He speaks with scorn but also restraint about what SCO is doing, saying they appear to be shaking the tree to see if any money falls down. No matter what they do, he adds, it doesn't really matter, because rewrites are possible and because GNU/Linux is only one possible combination. There are two other kernels that work just fine too:

"I cannot prognosticate about the SCO vs IBM lawsuit itself: I don't know what was in their contract, I don't know what IBM did, and I am not a lawyer. The Free Software Foundation's lawyer, Professor Moglen, believes that SCO gave permission for the community's use of the code that they distributed under the GNU GPL and other free software licenses in their version of GNU/Linux.

"However, I can address the broader issue of such situations. In a community of over half a million developers, we can hardly expect that there will never be plagiarism. But it is no disaster; we discard that material and move on. If there is material in Linux that was contributed without legal authorization, the Linux developers will learn what it is and replace it. SCO cannot use its copyrights, or its contracts with specific parties, to suppress the lawful contributions of thousands of others. Linux itself is no longer essential: the GNU system became popular in conjunction with Linux, but today it also runs with two BSD kernels and the GNU kernel. Our community cannot be defeated by this."

Here's what he didn't say: he didn't say, "I told you so." He didn't say, "SCO are skunks." He did say: if you say GNU/Linux instead of Linux, it helps you to think more clearly, and it would help a lot right now, because if Linux were to fall, Linux the kernel, then people understand right away that GNU/Hurd hits the ground running. In other words, Linux used to be essential, but it no longer is. If they kill the Linux kernel, which he doesn't expect, then a free operating system is still here and no one will be deprived of anything.

In a calm, cerebral way, he is saying: Take that, you big business ethically challenged bully strategists. Now whatcha gonna do?